WEBVTT NOTE 22. Sam Adams Rallies Boston 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.600 Volume 3, Chapter 22, Sam Adams Rallies Boston 2 00:00:06.600 --> 00:00:11.740 The vital question, then, was what the reaction of the people of the several colonies would 3 00:00:11.740 --> 00:00:18.900 be to Patrick Henry's trumpet call. A preponderance of the people were clearly delighted. Most 4 00:00:18.900 --> 00:00:25.640 of the colonists found out about the Virginia Resolves by early July. By mid-August, Governor 5 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:31.040 Governor Francis Bernard of Massachusetts was warning the Crown that two or three months 6 00:00:31.040 --> 00:00:37.460 ago I thought that this people would submit to the Stamp Act without actual opposition, 7 00:00:37.460 --> 00:00:43.120 but the publishing of the Virginia Resolves proved an alarm bell to the disaffected. And 8 00:00:43.120 --> 00:00:49.280 the British General, Thomas Gage, stationed in New York, called the Resolves the signal 9 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:53.680 for a general outcry over the continent. 10 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:59.040 But if most of the people were awakened and stirred by Henry and Virginia, who would lead 11 00:00:59.040 --> 00:01:00.040 them? 12 00:01:00.040 --> 00:01:07.080 For the masses cannot act without some form of organization and articulate leadership. 13 00:01:07.080 --> 00:01:13.680 No help, of course, could be expected from the Arch-Tory and opportunist Benjamin Franklin. 14 00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:18.920 Franklin predictably adjusted meekly and easily to the Stamp Act. 15 00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:25.840 We might as well have hindered the sun setting. Let us make as good a night of it as we can. 16 00:01:25.840 --> 00:01:30.600 Franklin proceeded to make a good night of it, indeed. Having happily filled the colonial 17 00:01:30.600 --> 00:01:36.360 post office with his relatives, he advised his fellow colonial agents to get themselves 18 00:01:36.360 --> 00:01:41.760 or their friends appointed as stamp masters, the crown officers in charge of distributing 19 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:48.760 the stamps in the colonies. Acting on this advice, Jared Ingersoll, Connecticut's agent 20 00:01:48.760 --> 00:01:54.700 in London, accepted the post of Connecticut Stamp Master, and Franklin was able to get 21 00:01:54.700 --> 00:02:00.640 his henchman, John Hughes, appointed Stamp Master in Pennsylvania. 22 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:06.880 Franklin's reaction on reading the Virginia Resolves is therefore not at all surprising. 23 00:02:06.880 --> 00:02:13.000 Denouncing the rashness of the Virginia leaders and the madness of the populace, Franklin 24 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:19.540 Franklin advised Hughes to act as a faithful and loyal servitor of the Crown in enforcing 25 00:02:19.540 --> 00:02:26.160 the Stamp Tax. And Franklin's friend and ally in dominating Pennsylvania politics, Joseph 26 00:02:26.160 --> 00:02:33.160 Galloway, wrote many newspaper articles in favor of the Stamp Act. If no help was to 27 00:02:33.160 --> 00:02:40.160 be expected from such Tories as Franklin in rallying popular opposition to the Stamp Act, 28 00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:47.700 of the Popular Liberal Leaders. A grave problem was the defection of erstwhile and future 29 00:02:47.700 --> 00:02:55.580 radical liberal leaders. Thus, stunned and temporarily alienated by the bold courage 30 00:02:55.580 --> 00:03:02.480 of Henry's Resolves, Alexander McDougall and John Moran Scott of New York, generally 31 00:03:02.480 --> 00:03:09.440 radical leaders of that colony, pronounced the Resolves to be treasonable. But the major 32 00:03:09.440 --> 00:03:39.440 Her blow to the libertarian cause came in Massachusetts. There, James Otis Jr., long-time leader of the Boston liberals and spark plug of American protest, began to defect from the liberal cause. Otis showed increasing signs of deviousness and instability, and perhaps of the insanity that was to plague him in later years. It is true that as early as June 33 00:03:39.440 --> 00:03:45.080 When Massachusetts received word of the Stamp Act, Otis proposed that the 34 00:03:45.080 --> 00:03:49.960 Massachusetts Assembly send a circular letter to the other colonial assemblies, 35 00:03:49.960 --> 00:03:56.360 inviting them to a general Congress to be held in New York in October to ask 36 00:03:56.360 --> 00:04:03.880 Britain for relief. But, on the other hand, in May, Governor Bernard had happily 37 00:04:03.880 --> 00:04:10.880 reported to the Crown that Otis now repents in sackcloth and ashes for writing the rights 38 00:04:10.880 --> 00:04:17.200 of the colonies, and that a new pamphlet of Otis's humbly begs Brinton's pardon for his 39 00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:24.200 former stand. Furthermore, Otis's call for Stamp Act Congress was all well and good, 40 00:04:24.200 --> 00:04:31.840 Congress was all well and good, but it would, after all, be another, if larger, assembly 41 00:04:31.840 --> 00:04:37.040 ineffectually petitioning Parliament for relief. 42 00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:42.740 The important thing was the popular reaction to the Virginia Resolves, and here Otis showed 43 00:04:42.740 --> 00:04:47.700 his change of heart by denouncing them as reasonable. 44 00:04:47.700 --> 00:04:53.640 And while Otis erratically continued to denounce the British in anonymous contributions to 45 00:04:53.640 --> 00:04:59.600 with the Radical Boston Gazette, his public statements lauded the power of Parliament 46 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:06.440 and went so far as to ask for British troops to put down the rebellious Americans. If salvation 47 00:05:06.440 --> 00:05:13.440 was to come, it would not be from James Otis or from the Stamp Act Congress. Massachusetts 48 00:05:14.700 --> 00:05:20.360 and especially Boston had for years now been the great center of libertarian resistance 49 00:05:20.360 --> 00:05:26.660 to the Depredations of Great Britain. But now its old spokesman, James Otis, was no 50 00:05:26.660 --> 00:05:33.460 longer fit to lead the liberal cause. Oxenbridge Thatcher, who had written Massachusetts' 51 00:05:33.460 --> 00:05:40.720 original principled protest against the Sugar Act before being watered down by Hutchinson, 52 00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:48.320 exclaimed when he heard of the Virginia Resolves, They are men! And Thatcher, or a friend, immediately 53 00:05:48.320 --> 00:06:04.000 The People of Virginia have spoke very sensibly, and the frozen politicians of Massachusetts 54 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:10.800 say they have spoke treason. Pray, gentlemen, is it treason for the deputies of the people 55 00:06:10.800 --> 00:06:17.720 to assert their liberties or to give them away? We have been told that it is not prudence 56 00:06:17.720 --> 00:06:25.000 for us to assert our rights in plain and manly terms. Nay, we have been told the word rights 57 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:34.000 must not be once named among us. Cursed prudence of interested designing politicians. But Oxenbridge 58 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:41.880 Thatcher lay on his deathbed. Was there then no one to rouse the people, no one to lead 59 00:06:41.880 --> 00:06:47.760 Need the Boston masses into the streets to serve as the spearhead and vanguard of an 60 00:06:47.760 --> 00:06:57.800 American revolution against the Stamp Act? Yes, there was one man. If Otis was a dependable, 61 00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:06.160 radical leader no more, and if Thatcher lay dying, there was still the magnificent Sam 62 00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:13.160 Adam saw clearly that the real fight against the stamp tax would have to take place in 63 00:07:13.800 --> 00:07:20.800 the streets. He saw that the locus of pressure and unrest must be the appointed royal officials, 64 00:07:22.160 --> 00:07:29.160 the enforcers of the Stamp Act. In particular, that popular pressure should focus on the 65 00:07:29.160 --> 00:07:34.680 stamp distributors, the royal appointees who were in charge of selling the stamped paper 66 00:07:34.680 --> 00:07:40.580 and who were happily preparing to assume their lucrative posts. 67 00:07:40.580 --> 00:07:47.180 In the early summer of 1765, Sam Adams gathered together a group of Bostonians to lead and 68 00:07:47.180 --> 00:07:50.880 direct the people of Boston in the streets. 69 00:07:50.880 --> 00:07:54.000 The group was called the Loyal Nine. 70 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:59.260 Like the membership of Adams' Caucus Club, which comprised a cross-section of the town's 71 00:07:59.260 --> 00:08:29.260 It included two distillers, Thomas Chase and the wealthy John Avery, Benjamin Eads, printer of the Boston Gazette, the Liberals' Party organ, small businessmen, artisans like the braziers Stephen Cleverly and John Smith, the jeweler George Trot, and Henry Bass, a cousin of Adams. 72 00:08:29.260 --> 00:08:37.260 The headquarters of the group was Chase's distillery at Hanover Square. Adams rapidly 73 00:08:37.260 --> 00:08:43.860 worked out a remarkably efficient structure for the radical movement. The vulnerable public 74 00:08:43.860 --> 00:08:50.540 leaders of the fight, legislators, ministers and others, were not directly identified with 75 00:08:50.540 --> 00:08:56.780 the popular mobs. The effective liaison and direction were maintained through the Loyal 76 00:08:56.780 --> 00:09:03.540 In 1909, led by Adams, even though he was not an official member, the Bostonian populace 77 00:09:03.540 --> 00:09:09.820 was unified into an effective force with the various groups, from wealthy merchants to 78 00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:17.180 the bully boys of the taverns, playing complementary roles in the struggle. For the mass base of 79 00:09:17.180 --> 00:09:23.820 the popular mobs, Adams was able to utilize the gangs of the north end and of the south 80 00:09:23.820 --> 00:09:46.820 Every year on Guy Fawkes Day or Pope's Day, November 5, Boston's celebration of the defeat of the Catholic gunpowder plot of 1605 was traditionally climaxed by a quasi-friendly but violent clash between citizens of the North End and the South End. 81 00:09:46.820 --> 00:09:56.820 In time, each section had developed a gang for this purpose and trained its members in paramilitary fashion to a finely honed edge. 82 00:09:56.820 --> 00:10:02.820 Every year also, the quasi-friendly fighting became a bit bloodier. 83 00:10:02.820 --> 00:10:09.820 Particularly effective was the South End Gang, which had been victorious in the 1764 Brujaha. 84 00:10:09.820 --> 00:10:17.100 Law. The gang was headed by the shoemaker Ebenezer Macintosh, whose South End forces 85 00:10:17.100 --> 00:10:25.280 totaled 2,000 men. Adams was able to press Macintosh and the South End into action as 86 00:10:25.280 --> 00:10:33.280 his mass base, and by August 14 the radical liberals, smoothly organized by Adams, were 87 00:10:33.280 --> 00:10:39.740 ready to strike. Adams was ready to give the signal for the first mob action against 88 00:10:39.740 --> 00:10:46.020 against the Stamp Act, a deed that set the pattern and furnished the inspiration not 89 00:10:46.020 --> 00:10:52.740 only for further riots against the stamps, but for all the riots down to the American 90 00:10:52.740 --> 00:10:55.180 Revolution. 91 00:10:55.180 --> 00:11:00.260 Adams realized that the focus of attack must be the stamp master. 92 00:11:00.260 --> 00:11:07.480 On the morning of August 14, a Boston mob, directed by Adams and the Loyal Nine, hung 93 00:11:07.480 --> 00:11:15.320 Hung an effigy of Andrew Oliver on a tree, dubbed the Liberty Tree, in Newberry Street. 94 00:11:15.320 --> 00:11:22.120 Oliver, a brother-in-law of the Tory Lieutenant Governor, Thomas Hutchinson, had been appointed 95 00:11:22.120 --> 00:11:25.840 stamp distributor in Massachusetts. 96 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:33.800 Alongside Oliver hung an effigy, the symbol of the hated Lord Bute, a large boot, with 97 00:11:33.800 --> 00:11:37.320 an image of the devil crawling out of it. 98 00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:42.700 The affair was a challenge flung at the Royal Government. Some of the Schroeder members 99 00:11:42.700 --> 00:11:49.080 of the Council advised Governor Bernard to dismiss the whole episode as ostensibly a 100 00:11:49.080 --> 00:11:56.640 silly prank. But Bernard, furious at the hard-hitting attacks in the Boston Gazette, decided to 101 00:11:56.640 --> 00:12:02.480 accept the challenge. He was also advised to do so by Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson, 102 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:09.360 An Able Theoretician and the Chief Beneficiary of the Tory Cause in Massachusetts. 103 00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:15.480 As Chief Justice, Hutchinson ordered the sheriff to cut the effigy down, and the council 104 00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:22.000 washed its hands of responsibility by turning the problem over to the sheriff. 105 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:29.800 There was a considerable slip, however, between order and execution. 106 00:12:29.800 --> 00:12:37.320 The sheriff, to his amazement and dismay, found that the effigy could be cut down only 107 00:12:37.320 --> 00:12:44.600 by risking the officers' lives at the hands of the populace. The effigy was, so to speak, 108 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:51.240 the opening gun of the struggle. The radicals now decided to hammer the point home. By evening 109 00:12:51.240 --> 00:12:57.980 a large crowd had gathered at the Liberty Tree. They cut down the effigy and, bearing 110 00:12:57.980 --> 00:13:05.360 When it up began to march in a mock funeral procession, the mob included wealthy merchants, 111 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:12.320 many disguised in the work clothes of a laborer, and was led by Ebenezer Macintosh at the head 112 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:18.500 of his South Enders. First the mob went to the council building, where they made their 113 00:13:18.500 --> 00:13:27.140 presence felt and where they shouted the stirring slogan, liberty, property and no stamps. The 114 00:13:27.140 --> 00:13:33.120 The slogan was evidently patterned after the liberty, property and no excise of the cider 115 00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:37.920 tax rebellion in the West of England two years before. 116 00:13:37.920 --> 00:13:42.340 After impressing the council, the mob proceeded to serious business. 117 00:13:42.340 --> 00:13:48.420 Andrew Oliver had just finished constructing a building at his dock and it seemed plausible 118 00:13:48.420 --> 00:13:52.340 that from here he would distribute the stamped paper. 119 00:13:52.340 --> 00:13:57.980 There, at the Kilby Street Dock, the mob quickly razed the menacing building completely 120 00:13:57.980 --> 00:14:04.620 to the ground. From there, the disciplined crowd moved on to Oliver's home, where they 121 00:14:04.620 --> 00:14:11.420 put on an impressive show for that worthy by beheading Oliver's effigy. The graphic 122 00:14:11.420 --> 00:14:17.780 lesson did not escape the stamp master's understanding, especially as it was promptly 123 00:14:17.780 --> 00:14:47.780 The Theory of Money and Credit 124 00:14:47.780 --> 00:14:53.540 It smashed into the house, calling loudly for Oliver and threatening to kill him on the 125 00:14:53.540 --> 00:15:00.020 spot. Finding that Oliver had fled to the military post on the island of Castle William, 126 00:15:00.020 --> 00:15:06.500 the mob did the best it could by destroying the interior of his home. Governor Bernard 127 00:15:06.500 --> 00:15:13.300 ordered the militia to beat the drums to sound an alarm, only to find, to his consternation, 128 00:15:13.300 --> 00:15:16.300 that the drummers were all in the mob. 129 00:15:16.300 --> 00:15:22.660 Hastily, Bernard, realizing that discretion was the better part of valor, also skipped 130 00:15:22.660 --> 00:15:26.300 down to the safety of Castle William. 131 00:15:26.300 --> 00:15:31.880 Thomas Hutchinson, the Tory ultra, was made of sterner stuff. 132 00:15:31.880 --> 00:15:37.180 He walked with the sheriff to the Oliver home to order the mob to disperse. 133 00:15:37.180 --> 00:15:40.380 Seeing them, one of the mob's leaders shouted, 134 00:15:40.380 --> 00:15:45.180 The Governor and the Sheriff, to your arms, my boys! 135 00:15:45.180 --> 00:15:51.420 A hail of stones fell upon the august officials as they hurried away. 136 00:15:51.420 --> 00:15:53.820 August 14 137 00:15:53.820 --> 00:15:56.820 Here was a day to live in song and story. 138 00:15:56.820 --> 00:16:02.100 The first revolutionary blow had been struck by the colonists against the tyranny of the 139 00:16:02.100 --> 00:16:04.860 British grand design. 140 00:16:04.860 --> 00:16:11.460 For many years August 14 was celebrated throughout America as the happy day on which liberty 141 00:16:11.460 --> 00:16:18.620 arose from a long slumber. Or, as Sam Adams thundered, the people shouted and their shout 142 00:16:18.620 --> 00:16:25.820 was heard to the distant end of this continent. The next day the liberal leaders pressed their 143 00:16:25.820 --> 00:16:31.660 advantage and continued the work that the mob had begun so skillfully. They visited 144 00:16:31.660 --> 00:16:37.580 Oliver and informed him that the previous night was just a sample of what he could expect 145 00:16:37.580 --> 00:16:46.580 unless he resigned his office immediately. Here then was the main point of the mob action, 146 00:16:46.580 --> 00:16:55.460 revolutionary pressure on all stamp masters to resign their offices and thus make impossible 147 00:16:55.460 --> 00:17:04.700 The distribution of any stamped paper, and hence any enforcement of the stamp tax. 148 00:17:04.700 --> 00:17:12.060 Oliver promised to ask the Crown for permission to resign, and meanwhile to take no action 149 00:17:12.060 --> 00:17:14.980 to enforce the stamp tax. 150 00:17:14.980 --> 00:17:22.660 This reply satisfied the radical leadership and the loyal nine, but the radical masses 151 00:17:22.660 --> 00:17:31.260 sensibly wanted to make very sure to dot the i's and cross the t's. In short, they demanded 152 00:17:31.260 --> 00:17:38.860 nothing less than Oliver's immediate resignation. On the evening of the 15th, the mob built 153 00:17:38.860 --> 00:17:45.260 another large bonfire and threatened to raze Oliver's house to the ground. The leaders 154 00:17:45.260 --> 00:17:50.420 were able to dissuade them and the rank and file contented themselves with surrounding 155 00:17:50.420 --> 00:17:56.520 in the House of Thomas Hutchinson. They called for his presence, but in vain, Hutchinson 156 00:17:56.520 --> 00:18:05.400 had fled. He knew that this time the mob meant business. Adams and the Loyal Nine were jubilant. 157 00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:11.580 Their mass pressure had forced the stamp master to resign, and his example was a standing 158 00:18:11.580 --> 00:18:18.760 warning to anyone with the temerity to take his place. When one Tory declared that he 159 00:18:18.760 --> 00:18:24.640 The story would not have been as spineless as Oliver. The Loyal Nine taught him an instructive 160 00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:31.960 lesson by publicly fixing the date when his house would be destroyed. The Tory quickly 161 00:18:31.960 --> 00:18:39.120 came to his senses and retracted his statement. The leaders now saw that mass action need 162 00:18:39.120 --> 00:18:45.920 not stop with the intimidation of Oliver, that more could be and needed to be done. 163 00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:51.280 In particular, they saw that it was necessary to cowl not only the stamp master but also 164 00:18:51.280 --> 00:18:58.440 the whole clique of Tory officials appointed by the Crown. They were the enemy and not 165 00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:06.560 simply an isolated stamp distributor. Particularly, the suspicion grew, with good reason, that 166 00:19:06.560 --> 00:19:12.940 Thomas Hutchinson had secretly favored the stamp tax and that he was their most dangerous 167 00:19:12.940 --> 00:19:42.940 The leaders also saw the sweep of public opinion on their side. Few people criticized the events of the 14th, and the leading congregational ministers of Massachusetts, liberals all, blessed the mob action and virtually called for more. Especially ardent in favor and resistance to the stamp tax were the Reverend Andrew Elliott, the Reverend Charles Chauncey, the Reverend 168 00:19:42.940 --> 00:19:49.940 and Samuel Cooper, and, doubly especially, the great libertarian Reverend Jonathan Mayhew. 169 00:19:51.020 --> 00:19:56.940 These men were friends of the secular leaders of the people, Adams, Otis, the wealthy Boston 170 00:19:56.940 --> 00:20:03.060 merchant John Hancock, the brilliant young lawyer from Braintree, John Adams, and so 171 00:20:03.060 --> 00:20:10.060 forth. Mayhew was particularly ardent in attacking arbitrary power, in battling the Stamp Act, 172 00:20:10.060 --> 00:20:16.920 and Enchampioning the Right of Resistance by the People. He warned menacently that the 173 00:20:16.920 --> 00:20:24.020 Stamp Act could not be enforced in Massachusetts without bloodshed, and he emphasized that 174 00:20:24.020 --> 00:20:29.180 there were 60,000 fighting men in this colony alone. 175 00:20:29.180 --> 00:20:36.220 On the night of August 26, the radicals struck again, escalating their revolutionary blows. 176 00:20:36.220 --> 00:20:43.540 The mob gathered in full force around a bonfire in King Street, blowing on whistles and horns, 177 00:20:43.540 --> 00:20:51.300 and shouting enthusiastically for liberty and property. Then, revealing striking discipline 178 00:20:51.300 --> 00:20:58.040 and coordination, the mob, under the generalship of Ebenezer Macintosh, split into several 179 00:20:58.040 --> 00:21:05.540 sections, each with its assigned tasks. One group went to the home of William Story, Deputy 180 00:21:05.540 --> 00:21:11.700 Registrar of the Admiralty Court. Stories suspected of writing reports to England denouncing the 181 00:21:11.700 --> 00:21:19.060 Boston merchants received treatment benefiting his actions and status. The mob destroyed 182 00:21:19.060 --> 00:21:26.060 his papers, including his public papers, that would list the violators of customs regulations 183 00:21:26.060 --> 00:21:34.260 and wrecked his home and office. Another group went after another key enemy, Benjamin Hollowell, 184 00:21:34.260 --> 00:21:40.700 The Controller of the Customs, who had angered the Boston merchants by rigorous enforcements 185 00:21:40.700 --> 00:21:47.860 of the trade laws. Hallowell's house was also wrecked and his papers, containing written 186 00:21:47.860 --> 00:21:55.520 records relevant to enforcement of the British regulations, carried away. Macintosh now united 187 00:21:55.520 --> 00:22:02.220 two sectors of the mob and marched on to the pièce de résistance of the evening, the 188 00:22:02.220 --> 00:22:07.220 and the Home of Thomas Hutchinson. 189 00:22:07.220 --> 00:22:17.220 Before the 26th, several opportunities had been given to Hutchinson by the liberals to deny his complicity in passing the Stamp Act. 190 00:22:17.220 --> 00:22:24.220 But Hutchinson stood on his offended dignity and repeatedly refused to make the denial. 191 00:22:24.220 --> 00:22:30.700 Even on the day of the 26th, Hutchinson was given a final opportunity to deny the charge, 192 00:22:30.700 --> 00:22:35.780 but he refused to do so. The people could only interpret the lieutenant governor's lofty 193 00:22:35.780 --> 00:22:43.420 silence as assent, so they proceeded to wreck his house with a zeal and thoroughness, surpassing 194 00:22:43.420 --> 00:22:50.740 their ardent work of the night of August 14. The attack on the home of Thomas Hutchinson 195 00:22:50.740 --> 00:22:56.620 served to polarize the political conflict in Massachusetts. It was one thing to use 196 00:22:56.620 --> 00:23:03.020 the mob to put the fear of God into the stamp distributor and the customs collector. No 197 00:23:03.020 --> 00:23:09.100 one, after all, could sympathize with these bureaucrats but their own families. But an 198 00:23:09.100 --> 00:23:15.220 attack upon Hutchinson was a different story. Hutchinson was the nucleus and the leader 199 00:23:15.220 --> 00:23:22.320 of the Small but Powerful Clique of Oligarchs who were privileged by the Royal Government. 200 00:23:22.320 --> 00:23:29.520 An attack against him could only be interpreted as an attack upon the clique as a whole. 201 00:23:29.520 --> 00:23:36.160 The struggle against Great Britain had now become, as a corollary, a domestic struggle 202 00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:43.900 as well, and this was not surprising since the domestic ruling clique governed as a creature 203 00:23:43.900 --> 00:23:45.800 of the Crown. 204 00:23:45.800 --> 00:23:51.120 The government grew emboldened by the protests of the Hutchinson cabal at the treatment to 205 00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:59.580 his home, and was fooled by the tactical camouflage of Adams and the Boston town meeting in publicly 206 00:23:59.580 --> 00:24:03.520 repudiating the riot at Hutchinson's. 207 00:24:03.520 --> 00:24:10.980 The council therefore boldly ordered the arrest of McIntosh, only to find that Adams, backed 208 00:24:10.980 --> 00:24:17.460 by the leading merchants of the city promptly demanded Macintosh's immediate and unconditional 209 00:24:17.460 --> 00:24:24.460 release. If not, they warned, no one would stand guard in the whole town of Boston, and 210 00:24:25.220 --> 00:24:32.220 the Customs House would be pulled to the ground. The disillusioned rulers saw that Adams and 211 00:24:32.220 --> 00:24:38.540 the liberals were still fully in control of the town of Boston and of the hearts of its 212 00:24:38.540 --> 00:24:46.020 People, Ebenezer Macintosh was set free and rewarded by the people of Boston with a town 213 00:24:46.020 --> 00:24:48.100 office. 214 00:24:48.100 --> 00:24:55.180 The class struggle view that the Boston riots were lower class outburst directed against 215 00:24:55.180 --> 00:25:01.860 the rich is rebutted by the multi-class nature of the liberal movement, wealthy merchants 216 00:25:01.860 --> 00:25:31.860 No revolution advances in uniform, straight-line fashion. 217 00:25:31.860 --> 00:25:39.160 and Human Action. Instead, it always proceeds in zigs and zags. Adams and his allies saw 218 00:25:39.160 --> 00:25:46.500 clearly that it was now in order to slow down the movement. After all, the point had been 219 00:25:46.500 --> 00:25:54.300 beautifully made. Mass action had virtually forced the stamp master to resign and intimidated 220 00:25:54.300 --> 00:26:00.820 any potential successor. It had intimidated the royal officers, Governor Bernard having 221 00:26:30.820 --> 00:26:40.820 This occurred at the end of September, when Governor Bernard received the stamped papers from England and housed them in Castle William. 222 00:26:40.820 --> 00:26:53.820 The Loyal Nine threatened to storm the castle and destroy the papers, but the group was mollified when the Governor assured it that he had no power whatever to distribute the stamped papers. 223 00:26:53.820 --> 00:27:00.980 Adams spent the intervening weeks constructively, perfecting his organization and strengthening 224 00:27:00.980 --> 00:27:08.220 his apparatus. The Loyal Nine expanded its organization into the Sons of Liberty, a name 225 00:27:08.220 --> 00:27:14.420 proudly taken from the great speech of Colonel Isaac Barre, which had warmly referred to 226 00:27:14.420 --> 00:27:20.860 the Americans by this noble name. The Sons of Liberty consisted of a cross-section of 227 00:27:20.860 --> 00:27:26.580 and the Occupations of the Town, from Poor Laborers to Wealthy Merchants. 228 00:27:26.580 --> 00:27:33.620 For its mass base, Adams induced the North End and the South End to channel their rambunctious 229 00:27:33.620 --> 00:27:40.780 energies into more constructive deeds and united them to the Suns. 230 00:27:40.780 --> 00:27:48.820 For Guy Fawkes Day 1765, coming at a strategic time for the Stamp Tax, Adams prepared to 231 00:27:48.820 --> 00:27:56.340 to Hold a Union Feast, Celebrating the New Found Unity of the Two Sections. Macintosh 232 00:27:56.340 --> 00:28:04.340 was given a cadre of 150 militarily trained men to lead his mobs. The Sons of Liberty 233 00:28:04.340 --> 00:28:10.820 busied themselves by drawing up a list of Tory oligarchs whose homes might be sacked 234 00:28:10.820 --> 00:28:16.820 should the need arise. Governor Bernard now placed his hopes on the assembly convening 235 00:28:16.820 --> 00:28:23.700 at the end of September. Remembering the Sugar Act agitation, Bernard believed that the rural 236 00:28:23.700 --> 00:28:31.380 farmers would again prove a conservative force, but he found, to his astonishment, that the stamp 237 00:28:31.380 --> 00:28:39.060 tax had truly radicalized and unified the whole colony. He wrote home that the rural people 238 00:28:39.060 --> 00:28:45.380 seemed even more violent than the annoying Bostonians. They talk of revolting from Great 239 00:28:45.380 --> 00:28:51.540 Britain in the most familiar manner, and declare that the British forces never will subdue 240 00:28:51.540 --> 00:29:00.540 the inland. Furthermore, Oxenbridge Thatcher had died, and Bernard now found his nemesis, 241 00:29:00.540 --> 00:29:06.580 Sam Adams, in the House as leader of the liberal forces. To Bernard's urging of the General 242 00:29:06.580 --> 00:29:12.620 Court to enforce the Stamp Act as the law of the Supreme Parliament, the House replied 243 00:29:12.620 --> 00:29:19.420 said firmly that only the Massachusetts assembly had the right to tax and to make internal 244 00:29:19.420 --> 00:29:26.420 laws for the American colonies. By mid-October, Governor Bernard was wailing to the Crown 245 00:29:27.580 --> 00:29:34.300 that Massachusetts was in a state of outright rebellion. The militia refused to obey his 246 00:29:34.300 --> 00:29:40.260 orders. The real authority of the government is at an end. Some of the principal ringleaders 247 00:29:40.260 --> 00:30:01.180 If Patrick Henry had sounded the clarion call for resistance, Sam Adams, the loyal nine, 248 00:30:01.180 --> 00:30:06.780 and the Sons of Liberty had now blazed the path for action. 249 00:30:06.780 --> 00:30:13.780 August 14 raised the standard for mass rebellion against the enforcers of the Stamp Act.